Uddhav Thackeray's Big Oath With 6 Ministers, From 3 Parties

Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray has taken oath as Maharashtra Chief Minister and will head a Sena-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)-Congress alliance. Uddhav Thackeray took oath with six ministers -two from each party.

The ministers who were sworn in this evening are the Shiv Sena's Eknath Shinde and Subhash Desai, NCP's Jayant Patil and Chhaggan Bhujbal and Congress's Balasaheb Thorat and Nitin Raut.

The swearing-in ceremony took place at the jam-packed Shivaji Park in Mumbai, with Uddhav Thackeray's cousin Raj Thackeray on stage. Also present for the oath was former Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, whose government lasted just 80 hours, and Reliance's Mukesh Ambani with family.

After taking oath, Mr Thackeray will hold the first state cabinet meeting at 8 pm today.

NCP's Ajit Pawar, who returned to the party fold after an 80-hour stint as Deputy Chief Minister of a BJP-led government, may remarkably get the same post in the Maha Vikas Aghadi government. However, he was not sworn in today.

Ajit Pawar may face competition in the form of party colleague Jayant Patil, who had replaced him as chief of the NCP legislature party during his short-lived rebellion. Mr Pawar is sitting in the front row for Mr Thackeray's oath.

The Congress will given the post of Speaker, for which the name of former Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan is being speculated.

Of the 43 Maharashtra ministries, the Sena is likely to get 15, the NCP 16 and the Congress 12. The allocation of ministries is yet to be decided, say sources, indicating tough negotiations ahead.

With the Congress getting the Speaker's post, the NCP has reportedly demanded an extra ministry.

The Shiv Sena, which emerged the second largest party in last month's Maharashtra election with 56 seats in the 288-member assembly, tied up with the NCP (54) and Congress (44) after ending its alliance with the BJP (105) over power sharing.

The Sena had insisted on rotational chief ministership, which the BJP rejected.

The BJP's Devendra Fadnavis resigned on Tuesday, four days after a controversial early morning oath ceremony in which Ajit Pawar was sworn in as his deputy. Before the oath, President's Rule was revoked at 5.47 am following Prime Minister Narendra Modi's approval through a rarely used rule in which allows the bypassing of the cabinet for emergency decisions.

Mr Fadnavis resigned after the Supreme Court ordered him to prove his majority in an immediate floor test. The BJP was 40 short of a majority and Ajit Pawar had failed to bring in NCP MLAs required to close the gap.